Walmart among retailers to add stores, expand offerings in 'food deserts' | The Columbus Dispatch

ANYTHING BUT WAL-MART !!! WAL-MARTS are exactly what's wrong with our country today. big box stores not providing real jobs or beneifits to its employees and getting their profits off forcing companies they do business with to drop their profits by lowering retail prices to unacceptable levels. WALMART is evilpersonified, even with that daggone happy face!!! The devil is in the details....

Progressive Ohioan wrote:

ANYTHING BUT WAL-MART !!! WAL-MARTS are exactly what's wrong with our country today. big box stores not providing real jobs or beneifits to its employees and getting their profits off forcing companies they do business with to drop their profits by lowering retail prices to unacceptable levels. WALMART is evilpersonified, even with that daggone happy face!!! The devil is in the details....

I have never understood why Walmart is such a lightning rod for criticism. No one is ever going to get rich working in any retail store. People always get the highest paying job they can find. If they are working at Walmart, they ipso facto have the highest paying job they can get. If they can get something better, they can just quit and move to that job. The simple truth is that Walmart provides lots of jobs to people who can't get any job at all anywhere else. That is a good thing.

Progressive Ohioan wrote:

ANYTHING BUT WAL-MART !!! WAL-MARTS are exactly what's wrong with our country today. big box stores not providing real jobs or beneifits to its employees and getting their profits off forcing companies they do business with to drop their profits by lowering retail prices to unacceptable levels. WALMART is evilpersonified, even with that daggone happy face!!! The devil is in the details....

You do know that Sears was once the target of these same accusations long ago correct? It turned out all that really happened was the distribution system improved significantly and people had the option to buy lower priced goods. Even the anti small business / anti mom & pop were part of that argument then. Same argument, different times. Walmart has had similar effect to Sears in the early days. Despite the uppity middle class in America snubbing their nose while shopping at a store which is exactly the same (just red circles make it different), Walmart has been a positive thing for many American consumers, especially those in the lower economic ranks. "Evil personified." Really? Dramatic much?

Have you seen the size of people around Columbus? There is no "food desert" within light years.

Voice of reality wrote:

<quoted text>
I have never understood why Walmart is such a lightning rod for criticism. No one is ever going to get rich working in any retail store. People always get the highest paying job they can find. If they are working at Walmart, they ipso facto have the highest paying job they can get. If they can get something better, they can just quit and move to that job. The simple truth is that Walmart provides lots of jobs to people who can't get any job at all anywhere else. That is a good thing.

They have some anti-union-type practices that are unattractive. Further, they have a track record of keeping people in low-pay conditions by hiring primarily part-timers, and referring them to social services for food stamps and Medicaid. Wal-Mart is exactly the kind of workplace that is really ripe for unionization. Their jobs cannot be exported and they are large and financially successful.

By the same reasoning that you employ, if their wages were bumped up, then the wages of other similar places would go up to keep pace.

But Wal-Mart has also driven a lot of small-town family establishments out of business, which means that the profits leave town. This can be devastating.

I am really torn. I am glad today to see new jobs of any kind, and access to fresh meats and produce is important in the city. But, Wal-Mart is not real good people.

My neighborhood has a new Sav-A-Lot and I know that they have worked closely with the community in developing their stock, and in hiring. The also have pretty decent (albeit limited) produce and meats.

Gabe Gerken wrote:

Have you seen the size of people around Columbus? There is no "food desert" within light years.

Obesity is not the result of too much healthy eating. Generally comes from eating too much as well as not the right foods.

Are these fruits and vegetables going to be genetically motified? Yes they will be. 40,000 new jobs are a lot of low paying jobs. Glad we have all have college degrees for these lovely jobs.

Voice of reality wrote:

<quoted text>
I have never understood why Walmart is such a lightning rod for criticism. No one is ever going to get rich working in any retail store. People always get the highest paying job they can find. If they are working at Walmart, they ipso facto have the highest paying job they can get. If they can get something better, they can just quit and move to that job. The simple truth is that Walmart provides lots of jobs to people who can't get any job at all anywhere else. That is a good thing.

Watch "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price"

Linda wrote:

Are these fruits and vegetables going to be genetically motified? Yes they will be. 40,000 new jobs are a lot of low paying jobs. Glad we have all have college degrees for these lovely jobs.

Fruits and vegis have been genetically modified over thousands of years. Why is it an issue now? Ever seen "indian corn" with all the different colors? All species Sweet corn and field corn came from one specific plant cross bred with other plants over thousands of years.

Parents need to teach their kids how to eat. It is no one else's responsibilty, not schools, not stores, manufacturers or the government.

Gabe Gerken wrote:

Have you seen the size of people around Columbus? There is no "food desert" within light years.

in our house we call them "Ohio Sized"

Linda wrote:

Are these fruits and vegetables going to be genetically motified? Yes they will be. 40,000 new jobs are a lot of low paying jobs. Glad we have all have college degrees for these lovely jobs.

take your college degree to your Gov Kasuck , and ask where the real jobs are...

The problem is that fruits and vegetables are expensive, especially when compared with junk food, which is why the majority of people on food stamps load up their cats with Twinkies and Ho-Ho's since they can get 10x as much junk food as healthy food for the same price.

hah H0 H0's is apparently a disallowed word.

ok I give up. H o H o's

I went to school in Kentucky..........
Our pies, cakes and ice cream WUZ spelled
desserts, not a friggin' sand dune........

The problem is wrote:

The problem is that fruits and vegetables are expensive, especially when compared with junk food, which is why the majority of people on food stamps load up their cats with Twinkies and ****-****'s since they can get 10x as much junk food as healthy food for the same price.

Save us the cheap junk food excuse. A bunch of bananas is $1.20. A box of Twinkies is $3.49.

Charlie Justice wrote:

I went to school in Kentucky..........
Our pies, cakes and ice cream WUZ spelled
desserts, not a friggin' sand dune........

What? The Dispatch another typo? I thought maybe they were getting more food from the "desert!"

Bullpucky wrote:

<quoted text>
What? The Dispatch another typo? I thought maybe they were getting more food from the "desert!"

No typo, just a lack of your understanding. A "food desert" is a neighborhood without many (or any) grocery options... leaving the nearby residents stuck with nothing but fastfood and junk food from convenience stores. It's considered a contributing factor of endemic obesity, especially in poor, urban areas.

Voice of reality wrote:

<quoted text>
I have never understood why Walmart is such a lightning rod for criticism. No one is ever going to get rich working in any retail store. People always get the highest paying job they can find. If they are working at Walmart, they ipso facto have the highest paying job they can get. If they can get something better, they can just quit and move to that job. The simple truth is that Walmart provides lots of jobs to people who can't get any job at all anywhere else. That is a good thing.

The criticism is not related to jobs Walmart creates. In reality, what Walmart has done over time is intentionally drive out locally owned companies that paid decent wages, stocked locally made products (meaning supported other local jobs), and actually cared about their communities. Now that those stores are gone, Walmart is left seeming like the good guy for providing jobs ... that don't pay much, underinsure people, and treat workers as if they mean nothing more than the bottom line.

Did you also know Walmart is one of China's biggest exporters? What this means is that Walmart has hired people not from America to produce all those plastic crappy little things that we don't really need anyway. So, Walmart is even more responsible for hurting our economy for the average middle or lower class person.

The only reason companies like Walmart exist is because a small handful of powerful people are making the big bucks off of it. It's not helping the "average joe" or even the "slightly-above-average joe."

We should all be growing more of our own food and buying less crap anyway, though.

Mathew wrote:

Yeah, but it's still Wal-Mart, the Mecca of all that is White-Trash.

you say "white trash" like its a bad thing....